The Art of Moana, by Jessica Julius and Maggie Malone – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer

9781452155364_flatcoverThe Art of Moana, by Jessica Julius and Maggie Malone. Preface by John Lasseter. Foreword by Ron Clements and John Musker.
San Francisco, CA, Chronicle Books, November 2016, hardcover $40.00 (160 pages), Kindle $16.19.

Moana is a 103-minute 3D computer-animated comedy fantasy feature film from Walt Disney Animation Studios, released on November 23rd, 2016. The Art of Moana is a coffee-table, full-color art book describing that film, and its making, in detail. Jessica Julius and Maggie Malone, the book’s authors, are both veteran executives at Walt Disney Animation. Julius wrote The Art of Big Hero Six and The Art of Zootopia. The preface is by John Lasseter, the director responsible for turning the Pixar and Disney studios into the powerhouses of theatrical feature animation in the last two decades. The foreword is by Ron Clements and John Musker, the co-directors of many other Disney features including The Little Mermaid and Aladdin.

The Art of Moana is a de luxe art book about the film and its making, with detailed visual samples and background information. For those interested in the film, this book is worth getting for the names of all the characters alone. The rejected preliminary designs of the main characters will be fascinating, also.

The film’s plot is summarized in its official blurb.

“Three thousand years ago, the greatest sailors in the world ventured across the Pacific, discovering the many islands of Oceania. But then, for a millennium, their voyages stopped—and no one today knows why. From Walt Disney Animation Studios, Moana is a CG-animated adventure about a spirited teenager who sails out on a daring mission to prove herself a master wayfinder and fulfill her ancestors’ unfinished quest. During her journey, Moana meets the once-mighty demi-god Maui and together they traverse the open ocean on an action-packed adventure, encountering enormous fiery creatures and impossible odds.”

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